Re: [Callers] Favorite mixers? - Contra Callers

2 Oct 2013

Here's the mixer that I've used many, many times.

Redwing Mixer
Written by Sybil Clark and the McLain Family (Bickie, Raymond, Raymond Jr.,
Alice, Ruth)

Gents progress one place to the right each time.

A1 Ladies forward and back,
     Gents go forward, turn right, and go to next lady on right
A2 Promenade with new partner,
     end in ballroom position with joined hands pointing to center of circle
B1 With the foot nearer center of circle, touch heel, touch toe, and take
two elegant slides into the center
     Do the same thing with the foot away from the center to return to place
B2 Abandon all pretense of elegance and do the same thing in double time
     Heel, toe, heel, toe, slide slide slide
     Heel, toe, heel, toe, slide slide slide!

Above is the way I've always called this dance, but I believe it was
originally written with no promenade.  The A1 had all going forward and
back twice, and the A2 had the ladies going forward and back, and the gents
going forward and on to the next.

Some groups get a kick out of having everyone call the "heel, toe, slide"
part of the dance out loud.  And, if you've got a big enough circle and a
daring band, it's fun having the band playing in the middle of the circle.

Jacob Bloom

Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 11:11:13 -0400
...
  From: Michael Clark &lt;michael.clark(a)wmich.edu&gt;
 To: Caller's discussion list &lt;callers(a)sharedweight.net&gt;
 Subject:

 Re: [Callers] Favorite mixers?
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 Thanks Kalia for getting this discussion started. You and others
 might be interested in going back into the Callers archives for a
 couple of earlier discussions on mixers, one in March 2012 started by
 David Millstone, I think, and one on waltz mixers in October 2010
 started by Chrissy Fowler. It looks like there's some overlap between
 now and the earlier discussions, but not a lot.

 Here's a  mixer I use fairly often that I don't think has come up
 recently or in the earlier discussions. It's a reordering of one I
 learned from the English caller John Turner when he was over here in
 the mid-90's. (As he presented it, the promenade was the end of the
 sequence.)

 A1 Partner balance and swing
 A2 Promenade
 B1 Ladies to the center and back (clap on count 4); gents the same,
 end facing your partner around the ring (i.e., gents face CCW, ladies CW)
 B2 Allemande Right partner (=#1) once and a half, Allemande Left the
 next (=#2) once and a half to face the next (=#3, your new partner)

 I always think of this as "John Turner's Mixer," but I wrote him some
 years back to see if he had title and author information on it. He
 calls it "Grand Chain Allemande" but couldn't remember where/when he
 had collected it or who might have composed it. I wonder if John
 Sweeney or any other English dance leaders who read [Callers] might
 know something about it.

 Mike

 At 02:42 AM 9/28/2013, Martha Wild wrote:
 I have a big circle mixer I really like, I'm
not sure who wrote it
or the name of it, perhaps if someone else recognizes it they can
help me out there. I just call it the Balance and Pass mixer so I
know what it is. 